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12.12.11

Catalyst: Comfort Food - ABC TV Science

"Tanya HaSo comfort food helps us relieve the stresses of daily living - but new research suggest that it can also help deal with the consequences of long term mental trauma.

NARRATIONUsing rats, Professor Margaret Morris showed that the consumption of comfort foods can reverse the long term effects that early life trauma has on the hippocampus, an important stress regulating region of the brain. The hippocampus can effectively shrink when a person is subjected to abuse, neglect or abject poverty.

Prof Margaret J MorrisEarly life trauma induces changes in the hippocampus and of course because early life increases your risk of things like depression, epilepsy, psychosis, it's important that we understand how better to intervene and that's where our research is coming from."

TRANSCRIPT

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NARRATIONNothing tastes quite like comfort food - that decadent, indulgent and, let's face it, delicious way we sometimes deal with the stress of everyday life.

Prof Margaret J MorrisComfort eating refers to the use of food in a therapeutic way. So people using foods to reduce their stress levels or to make them feel better.

Prof Margaret J MorrisComfort food has many elements and the basic bottom line is high in fat and high in sugar.

Tanya HaBut is all that sugar and fat really doing you any good and is there a substitute for comfort food?

Prof Margaret J MorrisA lot of studies suggest that foods that are high in fat and sugar have a stress reducing effect and that's in the acute phase in the short term but also in the longer term so if you expose an animal to a stress and you provide fat and sugar, the animal feels less stressed.

NARRATIONExactly how comfort food does that isn't certain but the evidence suggests it involves chemicals in the brain, like serotonin and dopamine, that influence our moods and our sense of reward - similar to the way that drugs of addiction also induce a sense of pleasure.

Tanya HaSo comfort food helps us relieve the stresses of daily living - but new research suggest that it can also help deal with the consequences of long term mental trauma.

NARRATIONUsing rats, Professor Margaret Morris showed that the consumption of comfort foods can reverse the long term effects that early life trauma has on the hippocampus, an important stress regulating region of the brain. The hippocampus can effectively shrink when a person is subjected to abuse, neglect or abject poverty.

Prof Margaret J MorrisEarly life trauma induces changes in the hippocampus and of course because early life increases your risk of things like depression, epilepsy, psychosis, it's important that we understand how better to intervene and that's where our research is coming from.

NARRATIONNeedless to say, the benefits to the hippocampus did come at a high cost.

Prof Margaret J MorrisOur rats were obese, they had increased fat, they were glucose intolerant, they were pre-diabetic so we dont want to promote this as a panacea for treating stress.

Tanya HaIts obviously unhealthy to have a diet entirely of comfort food, so what's the alternative?

NARRATIONYes, you guessed it - moderate, regular exercise.

Prof Margaret J MorrisWe found that a high fat diet or exercise had the same mood elevating effects so one doesn't have to be extreme here, you can combine a little bit of comfort food and regular exercise.

Tanya HaSo we don't have to cut out the occasional chocolate biscuit.

Prof Margaret J MorrisNo, I think the occasional chocolate biscuit is ok, I think people need that release and its a pleasurable experience.Topics: Health